However, as is the case with most news conferences in golf these days, a question came up about rival professional tours. As the PGA Tour continues to tighten its defence against the LIV Golf series, rumours continue to exist regarding something similar happening in women’s professional golf. That, coupled with the re-emergence of the Ladies Asian Tour, prompted a question as to what the LPGA Tour should do during these strange times.

The Ladies European Tour already has a partnership with the Golf Saudi-backed Aramco Series, a five-event series which features a total purse that is nearly four times more than a typical event on the LET.

“I think the players have to stick together right now probably more than ever,” Lewis said. “They have to realise how far this tour has come over the last — especially the last five years how far we’ve come. And we have done that by working together. We’ve done that by players making sacrifices and doing things that they maybe wouldn’t want to do. But it’s important for this tour. Helping get sponsors, doing extra things at tournaments. We still have to work hard as a tour.”

Both Lewis and Pressel were open and clear in saying that they didn’t have a plan for what the tour should do if a potential threat ever developed, but whatever it does, it’s going to have to be different than what the PGA Tour has been doing.

“I don’t know what the right answer is,” Pressel said. “I don’t know that the LPGA Tour can survive what the PGA Tour is going through right now.”

LPGA commissioner Molly Marcoux Samaan appears to have the same mentality. Earlier this summer she said that she would “engage in a conversation if it would achieve our aim of promoting women’s golf”.

Whatever does happen in the future, Pressel desperately hopes to see the principles that founded the LPGA remain intact.

“I think all the players really need to embrace that at this moment,” she said, “truly acting like a founder and think of all the women who came before us and what they did to build this incredible organisation and how far we have come.”

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By Ryan Herrington
The legend of Rory McIlroy and his Peloton prowess has grown rapidly in the last few months, his output during training rides (specifically registering 955 kilojoules in one 45-minute session) causing a stir among Peloton junkies. But it was a different golfer who impressed on the bike on Saturday when Peloton and ESPN held its first Pro-Athlete All-Star race.

Morgan Pressel, the 15-year LPGA veteran, competed in the women’s ride and finished second among the eight participants. Pressel’s total output of 226 kilojoules trailed only Olympic middle-distance runner Colleen Quigley (348) and outpaced athletes from the soccer, tennis, basketball and gymnastics worlds.

What an electric ride from all of our female athletes! Congratulations to Colleen Quigley with a commanding victory representing Oregon and USA Track & Field. pic.twitter.com/ZncSxXmmPp

— Peloton (@onepeloton) May 30, 2020

The competition involved a 20-minute ride led by celebrity Peloton trainer Robin Arzon to help the Food Bank of New York City.

In the men’s division, McIlroy was one of three PGA Tour pros in the eight-person race, joined by Bubba Watson and Justin Thomas. But the World’s No. 1 ranked golfer could do no better than fourth in the competition, accumulating 351 kj. Swimmer Matt Grevers, a four-time Olympic medalist, finished first (417), followed by Boston Celtic All-Star Gordon Hayward (397) and former NFL defensive tackle turned broadcaster Booger McFarland (384).

Watson meanwhile finished sixth (275) and Thomas finished in last place (239).

Another gold for the shelf ? pic.twitter.com/H1cZJHL1bp

— Peloton (@onepeloton) May 30, 2020

That McIlroy couldn’t grow his legend on the bike might be seen as disappointing, but he was also a bit of a marked man for Saturday’s competition.

“Since I can’t beat Rory McIlroy on the golf course, my one goal for today is to prove that golfers aren’t athletes,” McFarland said ahead of the race, ultimately accomplishing the task.

Naturally, the trash talk wasn’t limited to before the race. Said Grevers during the competition: “I was trying to listen to [instructor] Alex [Toussaint] and the cues but I think Bubba’s breathing too hard for me to hear anything so I just kind of went.”

By the end of the men’s and women’s competitions, the NYC Food Bank had seen more than 1,000,000 meals donated as the 16 bikers accumulated 4,312 kj combined, far exceeding the 3,000 point goal.

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Later this week, the competition will continue. Only it won’t include the sport they’re known for.

Instead, McIlroy and Thomas, along with Bubba Watson and Morgan Pressel, as well as a slew of other current and former professional athletes from other sports, will battle it out in another of their passions: Peloton.

McIlroy, Thomas, Watson and Pressel, will take part in Peloton’s first All-Star ride, which will consist of two 20-minute classes, with noted Peloton instructor Alex Toussaint leading the men’s division and Robin Arzon leading the women’s division. Also scheduled to take part are Gordon Hayward, Kyle Rudolph, Booger McFarland, Matt Gravers, Mike Golic Jr., Allyson Felix, Colleen Quigley, Dawn Staley, Kyla Ross, Michele Smith, Monica Puig and Victoria Azarenka. The competition will be broadcast May 30 on ESPN at 12 noon EDT.

The rider with the highest output number—a combination of cadence and resistance—in each of the two competitions will be declared the winner of that division. Given McIlroy’s excellence on the bike, which Golf Digest reported earlier this year, he’ll be one of the favourites, if not the favourite.

Even better? If the participating pro athletes combine to reach an output of 3,000 kilojoules, Peloton will donate one million meals to the Food Bank for New York City. Given McIlroy’s abilities, as well as presumably those of the rest of the group, that shouldn’t be a problem.

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“I wanted to know what my team was thinking, I asked them what they think the team needs,” Inkster said. “They said we need some veteran leadership.”

There are a lot of veterans beyond Pressel and Lewis to consider — like Cristie Kerr and Paula Creamer. But there were also some impressive would-be rookies to think about — like Augusta National Women’s Amateur champion and Evian Championship runner-up Jennifer Kupcho.

“It was kind of unanimous around the board,” Inkster said. “That makes it easier for Stacy and Morgan, knowing that the team wanted them.”

The previous four times Lewis has played in the Solheim Cup, she has qualified outright. Part of the reason the 34-year-old needed a captain’s pick to make the team this year is because she missed several tournaments while on maternity leave in 2018. Since coming back to the tour in January 2019, she’s had three top-10 finishes.

Pressel, 31, has had four top-10s in 2019, notably a fourth-place finish at the AIG Women’s British Open. It will be her first Solheim Cup since 2015. Both Pressel and Lewis missed the cut in the final qualifying event this past weekend, the CP Women’s Open.

“It was a tremendous disappointment missing the Solheim Cup two years ago,” Pressel said. “It was a realization of where I was with my game. To make it this year, I’m super excited. I feel good about where my game is, and I’m grateful for Juli for believing in me. The whole team has been supportive.”

Inkster, overseeing the U.S. squad for the third time, has said that the captain’s picks are the hardest part of the job. Before the CP Women’s Open, Inkster lamented that she had too many players worthy of the two spots she had. Among the veteran players that Inkster had to pass over are Cristie Kerr, who had been on every U.S. team dating back to 2002, and Paula Creamer, a member of the past seven Solheim Cup squads.

With both teams complete, here are the final rosters for Team USA and Team Europe for the 2019 Solheim Cup:

Team USA:
Marina Alex (rookie)
Brittany Altomare (rookie)
Danielle Kang
Megan Khang (rookie)
Jessica Korda
Nelly Korda (rookie)
Stacy Lewis
Annie Park (rookie)
Morgan Pressel
Lizette Salas
Lexi Thompson
Angel Yin

Team Europe:
Celine Boutier (rookie)
Carlota Ciganda
Georgia Hall
Caroline Hedwall
Charley Hull
Bronte Law (rookie)
Caroline Masson
Azahara Munoz
Anna Nordqvist
Suzann Pettersen
Jodi Ewart Shadoff
Anne Van Dam (rookie)

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It ended up being a bigger experience than they could have planned for. The middle schooler living in Boca Raton, Fla., made history by qualifying for the Women’s Open at Pine Needles, becoming at the time the youngest to ever qualify for the women’s national championship.

She missed the cut in 2001, but four years later, at the Women’s Open at Cherry Hills outside Denver, Pressel nearly won the title as an amateur. Birdie Kim, true to her name, holed out for birdie on the 72nd hole, as Pressel played in the group behind. Pressel made bogey at 18, leaving her and Brittany Lang, also an amateur at the time, in a tie for second.

For the next 12 seasons, save for one withdrawal in 2012, Pressel competed in the biggest women’s event in golf, posting two more top-10 finishes. She was such a regular in the championship, making it easy to overlook just how big an accomplishment qualifying actually is.

She’s back again once more this week at the Country Club of Charleston, teeing it up with Gerina Piller and Paula Creamer off the first tee on Thursday afternoon. But only after the humbling experience of having to go back to doing what she first had to do as 12-year-old: qualify for the Women’s Open via sectional qualifying.

This was actually Pressel’s second straight year that she was forced to play in sectional qualifying. A year ago, Pressel was three spots shy an automatic exemption off the LPGA money list.

“It was tough to even go to Sectional Qualifying,” Pressel admitted. “I probably even had the attitude that I didn’t want to go. I was just frustrated that I had to be there.”

Pressel first qualified for the 2001 Women’s Open as a 12-year-old (left) and finished T-2 as an amateur in 2005 at Cherry Hills.

Suffice it to say, that experience wasn’t a positive one. The Virginia location where Pressel tried to qualify had a stacked field, because it was right before the LPGA event in Virginia, the Kingsmill Championship. There were four available spots, and Pressel didn’t make it.

“I was sad, really disappointed,” she said. “I didn’t even really watch any of it. I couldn’t bring myself to watch it. I was disappointed that I wasn’t there.”

Failing to qualify for the U.S. Women’s Open as a 29-year-old is harder in some ways than missing out as a teen, because it comes with knowing that qualifying is something she’s very capable of. But it’s easier in that a 29-year-old has had the experience to know a career doesn’t end with a single missed opportunity, a collection of bad holes. When she played in sectional qualifying again this year in California, not only qualified but was medalist by three shots.

Her former self might not be able to get herself there.

“I learned that life goes on. It was a blip. The last couple of years have been a blip I feel like I could say,” Pressel said. “I’m happy to not be sitting this one out.”

• • •

There are few people as young as Pressel (she turned 31 last week) who have had such a long career. It gives her a unique, and powerful, perspective on what motivates a golfer, what thoughts work at certain times, what becomes complicated, and how to make things simple again. When she talks about what made her play in that first U.S. Women’s Open, it’s the simple realization kids have all the time: That they love something and want to do it for as long as possible.

“I remember when I first played in the Open, I’d only been playing golf for a little over four years,” Pressel said. “I had decided that this is awesome, this is what I want to do with my life. It was that lightbulb for me.”

After winning the 2005 U.S. Women’s Amateur, Pressel skipped college golf and turned pro at age 17. Shortly thereafter, she became the youngest player to win a major, taking the 2007 Kraft Nabisco Championship title at age 17. She’d win again a year later in Hawaii, in what surprisingly turned out to be her second and so far her last LPGA Tour victory.

As the years pass, motivation can get complicated. Especially when you add difficult seasons to the equation. In March 2019, Pressel was ranked No. 191 in the world. It’s a long way down from having been in the top 20 in 2015, 2012, 2011 and 2010.

“Over the last couple years, I’ve had a lot of moments of questioning. Am I doing the right thing? Is golf what I should be doing? I’ve had lots of different thoughts going through my head,” Pressel said. “I don’t think I’ve seriously thought about stopping golf. But sometimes that self doubt in the back of your mind, it’s powerful. Sometimes it doesn’t have anything to do with beating your opponent; it has to do with conquering your own mind.”

The motivation she maintained was something she said a recent PGA Tour winner phrased well. Pressel read about Max Homa’s breakthrough win at the Wells Fargo Championship and read that throughout his struggle, he kept falling back to the notion that Today’s the day. It was a phrase that resonated with Pressel.

“When you stop having that feeling of Today’s the day, that’s when probably it’s time to move on to something else,” she said. “I know that I’m capable of playing better golf than I’ve been playing. I think that’s what’s been pushing me forward.”

Donald Miralle/Getty Images
Pressel posing for an LPGA portrait in March.

That’s a harder mentality to maintain than the simplicity of young passion, but Pressel has done just that. She worked through a wrist injury, saying she developed some bad swing habits in the process. Then she tried to fix her swing on her own, an idea that seemed like the right call at the time. But after about two years she called Martin Hall, the instructor who worked with her when she was young. For mechanics, they’re working on getting the club back on plane. Mentally, the focus has been more on patience and alleviating the frustration that she’s been feeling on the course.

“It’s been 14 years on tour, and I’ve been through a little bit of everything. Ups, down, everything in the middle,” Pressel said. “Nothing lasts forever. The good times don’t last forever, the tough times don’t last forever. And if you let golf really beat you up, you’re pretty much done. I feel like I’m better at not letting golf beat me up off the course, separating my job from who I am as a person. Sometimes, when everybody knows you as a golfer, and people see your results and see your struggles, sometimes it’s hard to separate the two—life and golf. That’s where a really strong support team comes in. I’m really lucky to have that.”

Pressel got everyone’s attention the way young, prodigal players do. The sense of awe, and even confusion, at a young person achieving incredible athletic feats will always inspire a following. But the navigation of the nonlinear trajectory of progress over the course of a full, complicated, imperfect career makes Pressel as interesting during this U.S. Women’s Open as she was in her first.

“My expectations are higher now than when I was a young amateur,” said Pressel. “I’ve always been a big dreamer, goal setter, envision yourself where you want to them, and then take the steps necessary to get there.”

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